Sep 8, 2010

Today I stumbled upon Vegan Dad Blog and read a very interesting post he had written a while ago. In it he talks about how a Vegan diet conforms to the Canadian standards of what a daily diet should be. I've posted the picture above for you to see. I'm not Canadian, but I don't follow the US recommendations anyway. It's always interesting to see what other countries have to say.

According to the Canadian standards, people require 2-3 meat servings a day, OR meat alternatives. The clue is in the 'OR'. Look at the picture below. Need I say more?

Sep 6, 2010

I wanted to make a cake that I could eat for breakfast without feeling completely guilty about it. After much research on the internet, I came across this recipe and immediately decided to try it. Chai Tea is my favorite tea, and coconut my favorite tropical fruit. I was so happy to see that both flavors were combined in this cake. And to make it all better, it's vegan and fat free. It does have a lot sugar, but I'm working on a low sugar version.

I couldn't wait until morning, so I ate a piece with a little rice milk and it was awesome. The cake is a little too sweet for my taste, but my mom said it was perfect. I don't like sweets too much but she does. So I might be a little biased. The texture is dense and gooey. Not as gooey as a brownie though.

The fresh ginger really makes a difference. You can't really taste it immediately, but there is a spicy after taste that makes this cake of my favorites ever. And this is coming from someone who doesn't really like ginger. The original recipe called for coconut flakes, but all I could find was coconut flakes in heavy syrup (canned). So I measured how much I needed for the recipe and drained it in some paper towels to get the moisture out.

Ingredients:

8oz. Chai Tea (steep two bags)

1/3 cup uncooked Oatmeal

1.5 cups of Flour

1 ts. Baking Soda

1/2 ts. Salt

1 ts. Cinnamon

1/4 ts Fresh Ginger (or powdered)

3/4 cup Sugar

1/3 Apple Sauce

1 tbsp. Vinegar

1 ts. Vanilla

1/2 cup Coconut Flakes

Procedure:

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Then add all wet ingredients and mix well with a spatula until everything is incorporated.

2. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes on a round pan.

Enjoy it warm right out of the oven.
I plan to eat it with scrambled eggs in the morning.

I ate it right out of the jar the next morning. It's delicious warm or cold.

Apple Sauce is one of those things that still I'm not sure if I like. When I was a kid I used to have all the time because it was okay tasting and my grandma always had it in the fridge. Today I wanted to make a Coconut and Chai Breakfast Cake, which is vegan and fat free, so i needed apple sauce for the batter. Instead of going to the store for a jar, I decided to make my own. It's super easy and you probably have everything in your fridge already (I did).

Traditionally, I think it's made with water, but since I had some apple cider in the fridge, I decided to use that. You can play a little bit with the sugar content. Leave out the sugar entirely if you want, it isn't really necessary. The lemon juice really gives it a lot of body to the taste. You can smell the lemon juice while it's cooking, but don't worry because the flavor isn't overpowering. The little liquid that it's left at the end of the cooking process is all the caramelized sugars from the fruit.

This recipe yields about a cup and a half of apple sauce. Feel free to double it. So here it goes...

1. Put the apple juice, cinnamon sticks, sugar and lemon juice in a casserole.
2. Peel and core the apples. Then cut them in chunks and put them in the casserole with the rest of the ingredients.

3. Mix well. Then bring it to a boil. Cook for 15 minutes in medium heat, stirring a few times.
4. After 15 minutes, the apples should be very soft and there should be very little liquid. Mash everything together until it's smooth. Remove the cinnamon sticks of you want.

5. Serve and enjoy!

It tastes great warm! I have no idea how long it lasts in
the fridge because me and my mom ate it all in 24 hours.